OncoR Recurrence Test:
Head and neck cancer is the major group of related cancers. It accounts for 30% of all cancers in India compared with 3-4% in the US. Oral and oropharyngeal cancer (a type of head and neck cancer) cancer can often be treated by surgery alone to achieve complete cure, but current tests do not predict which patients need only surgery and which one needs more aggressive adjuvant chemotherapy or radiation therapy. OncoR resistance test is a gene-based test which predicts which patient needs only surgery (thus saving money and the unnecessary side effects of chemo/radiation therapy) and which patient would require more aggressive treatment. The test involves monitoring the expression of 16 genes identified as positive and negative predictors of metastasis of squamous cell carcinomas. The test is a real-time PCR array-based and can be performed on any tumor biopsy sample including formalin fixed paraffin embedded tissues. The test would also be an important guide for the surgeon in determining the extent of the tumor margin that needs to be resected, which is currently made based on empirical information that is generally not accurate. The expression pattern of the genes in the tumor is converted in a score using a proprietary algorithm which predicts the probability of recurrence of the disease after surgery. The test is undergoing refinement to be followed by validation studies in Indian patients.